1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to context aware wireless devices needing context dependent services. Such services may be location or user specific. Such wireless devices may be cell phones or PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) with augmented functions, or dedicated devices, or any other suitable wireless device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recent years have seen a great increase in subscribers world-wide to mobile telephone networks and, through advances in technology and the addition of functionalities, cellular telephones have become personal, trusted devices. A result of this is that a mobile information society is developing, with personalised and localised services becoming increasingly more important. Such xe2x80x9cContext-Awarexe2x80x9d (CA) mobile telephones are used with low power, short-range base stations in places like shopping malls to provide location-specific information. This information might include local maps, information on nearby shops and restaurants, information on exhibitions at museums and so on. The user""s CA terminal may be equipped to filter the information received according to pre-stored user preferences or user profiles and the user is only alerted if an item of data of particular interest has been received.
As example of a CA terminal is given in a technical report published by Hewlett Packard, xe2x80x9cUniform Web Presence Architecture for People, Places, and Thingsxe2x80x9d, HPL-2000-67, 13 pages, June, 2000. This report-decribes HP""s xe2x80x9cCooltownxe2x80x9d vision. The Cooltown vision is that people, places, and things have web representation and that many useful services can be offered by creating a tighter link between the real word entity and its vitual representation. Software architectures are defined enabling the dynamic generation of Web contents based on the user context (location, identity, device capabilities), on his security permission, and on the relationships with other Web presences. In Cooltown, the future consists of nomadic people carrying personal communication and web browsing devices interacting with services that are location specific and customized to the user.
In Cooltown, a patron might enter into an art museum carrying a handheld personal communication device with an embedded web browser. The museum has web pages corresponding to each room of the museum that comes available automatically upon entering the room. Individual paintings also have a web presence. By approaching a painting, the web page for that painting becomes available automatically. Other services such as printing, shopping, and choosing one""s next activity can be made more relevant as well by connecting the services to the user""s location context. The web presence of the patron could be automatically linked to the web presence of the devices (cell phone, handheld device, etcetera) the patron""s husband is currently carrying. The patron""s husband clicks on a link representing the patron and a corresponding application pops up at the patron""s husband""s device, the application establishing a web link to the current patron""s web presence. A web presence is accessible by any kind of HTTP client including but not limited to a Web browser, HTML pages being accessible by a client using simple URLs that refer to a home page at a server. At a given location, URLs become available from wireless xe2x80x9cbeaconsxe2x80x9d. These beacons are small infrared or radio transceivers located at a particular location.
Thus in the future mobile information society many context, location and application specific services should be made available to a person carrying a handheld device such as a cell phone, a PDA or any other handheld device that is capable of communicating within a defined coverage area within a system.
It is an object of the invention to provide a method of selecting an application, for use in a wireless device, on the basis of application specific messages received from a wireless station.
It is another object of the invention to provide such a method wherein availability and/or desirability to run an application is checked.
It is still another object of the invention to provide such a method wherein application specific data in said application specific messages is passed to a selected application.
It is an object of the invention to also provide a wireless system running a user location awareness application using. location registration information of context aware wireless devices when such devices roam through a wireless system of wireless stations of limited range.
It is another object of the invention to provide such a wireless system while using historical registration data.
It is still another object of the invention to provide such a wireless system while using proximity information of users to users and/or of users to locations.
It is still another object of the invention to provide such a wireless system while filtering location registration information.
In accordance with the invention, a method of selecting an application is provided, said method comprising:
receiving application specific messages from a wireless station, said application specific messages being specific to services provided via a wireless station transmitting said application specific messages, and said application specific messages comprising an application specific identifier identifying a specific application and data corresponding to said specific application;
determining whether an application is present in said wireless device that corresponds to said received application specific identifier; and
ignoring said correspondingly received data if it is determined that said corresponding application is absent in said wireless device.
Advantageously, said application specific messages are received as connectionless transmitted packets. Herewith, there is no need for unnecessary procedures such as used for connection-oriented communications. Particularly, for context aware roaming wireless devices that may have a need to quickly change applications a transmission method is needed avoiding exchange of a lot of system control data. Upon reception, the packets are re-assembled to application specific messages.
Advantageously, it is checked whether an application corresponding to the received application specific messages is active. Herewith, unnecessary halting of other running applications, particularly of applications needing the user interface of the wireless device, is avoided.
By first checking whether the specific application to be loaded matches a user profile of user preferences in the context wireless environment, it is prevented that currently not needed applications are made active.
In accordance with the invention, also a user location method for use in a wireless system is provided, said method comprising:
registering of locations and user identities of users of wireless devices that capable of roaming through said wireless system when said wireless devices enter into coverage areas of wireless stations in said system; and
running a user location awareness application, said user location awareness application using said registered locations and user identities of said wireless devices.
Herewith users in the system are made aware of each other or of their location while moving from one location to the other, thereby providing a mechanism to relate services to users, such as location dependent services to a single user, to location dependent services to multiple users at a single location or at different locations. Such a mechanism is particularly useful in future wireless systems requiring context dependent services.
Particularly useful is an application using historical registration data so that a user""s movement and behavior can be predicted in advance of providing services. Such movement could be heading into a direction of a particular wireless station, that could be a short-range beacon at a shopping mall or museum, or the like, or could have resulted that the particular wireless device and thus it""s user actually is in proximity of the particular wireless station.
Another particularly useful application is determining proximity of a user or users to wireless stations. Herewith users can be made aware of the location, and users can be made aware of each others locations. Such a mechanism is particularly useful for roaming users who want to contact or meet each other. A user may advantageously also set a user profile to filter whether an alert should be provided in a given context. Also advantageously system behavior may be modified depending on proximity information. Users within range of the same beacon could have their user profiles checked so that users of similar interest could easily contact each other, for instance. Or users could check profiles provided by beacons. The system should be modified in that profiles of users entering and leaving a beacon""s area should be added or removed from a beacon""s set of profiles.
Another useful application is filtering of registration data, either at the side of the client, i.e., the wireless device, or at the side of the server. Such filtering could be necessary if a user passes beacons, particularly short-range beacons, too fast or too frequently, or to avoid system overhead through processing of redundant data.